MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza The father of a child enrolled in a classroom at home for distance or blended learning put it best when he said, “Ang nanay, maraming natututo.” (Mothers, they’re the ones learning much.) As parents and kids are finding out, the strategy is to let mama do the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza After nearly two years, 2.4 million confirmed cases and more than 37,000 deaths as of two days ago, what have we learned about the coronavirus? The great mystery is still in answering the question, “Where did the patient get it? From whom?” The prayerful, like...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Doctora Claire is a heart doctor, but four days in the week she is assigned to the hospital’s COVID ward. She begins her day when most people at home are just waking up, wondering how late the doctora got in last night. It’s almost always a long, psychologically...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza For the first time in months, it didn’t feel so stressful to sit in front of the TV watching bad news and more bad news. On the first day of an experiment called alert level systems 1-5, supposedly a less strict classification of rules on behaving in public. Pure...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Pia Hontiveros, CNN Philippines anchor, gathered three political analysts/campaign strategists to talk about “new alliances in 2022” – and they all agreed with one another. If there was a difference of opinion, I didn’t catch it. Truth be told, I found myself...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Finally, an admission from DILG Usec Jonathan Malaya: “ Nakakalito .” He meant “confusing” and he was talking about the various Q’s that we’ve had to live with and under, locked in and locked down, for the last 18 months. Not that the new Q-less grades are any...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza If there’s anyone who’d decline to R.I. P., I imagine it would be the exceptional Joy or Joya, Ma. Josefina to you. Joya, 61, passed away on Sept. 7 after a six-hour dialysis session followed by cardiac arrest. She had spent the last few weeks of her topsy-turvy,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza At 11:32 p.m. precisely on Sept. 1, I heard my first carol of the year, “White Christmas.” Twelve hours earlier, Pedro, a father of four, put up his Christmas tree and pulled out box after box of ornaments. Later in the day, TV5 launched the network’s Christmas...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza The stage is set for the Fight of the Century! In the blink of an eye, the Clash of the Titans! (Drum roll) In this corner, Sara Duterte, defending champion of poll surveys! In the other corner, Leni Robredo, challenger! The signs are all there. The drama no longer...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza This business of wearing a mask as a weapon against the deadliest virus of our time has other virtues going for it. For one, it imparts a mysterious air to its wearer. It also hides his or her imperfections from the bridge of the nose down to the chin, in that way...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Stop calling them heroes but treating them like beggars. Pushing them against the wall, taking pleasure in their desperation, waiting for them to make good their threat to quit en masse. On National Heroes Day, doctors and nurses and other frontliners came out in small...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Before CNN and the worldwide web, news did not travel as fast as light. As it was an unknown entity, the name Afghanistan stood for anything that was strange, unfamiliar, far and far away. In short, Afghanistanism was the catch-all for whatever seemed or...
